


Day 1: Carry

by Erwins_eyebrows



Series: Eruriweek 2018 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, M/M, eruriweek day 1, hints of naughty things, sad really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erwins_eyebrows/pseuds/Erwins_eyebrows
Summary: My contribution for Eruriweek.  Day 1 Prompt: Carry.Levi always made sure to carry him home.





	Day 1: Carry

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance. This is sad. I cried writing it. That being said, I hope it doesn't turn anyone away. I actually had this idea for a while now, and Eruriweek gave me the perfect excuse to edit and post it.

Levi squinted against the early afternoon sun.  It was shining brightly, providing warmth on the early spring day.  There was a gentle breeze ruffling his hair and catching in his cape, cooling his face.  Sweat dampened his hair and slicked his palms as he gripped his horses reigns too tightly.

 

He pushed his mare hard, rushing through grassy ruins.  Neither the thundering of hooves nor the pounding of his pulse through his ears could drown out the sounds of screaming and gnashing of teeth.  The sweet spring air was tainted with the smell of blood and steaming titan corpses. Levi still pushed harder. 

 

He had to reach him.  Erwin needed him.

 

He knew he could carry Erwin.  He had done so on several occasions.  Nights after the particularly gruesome expeditions, when the memories of the screams could only be lost at the bottom of the bottle of whiskey.  It was those nights when Levi would drape Erwin’s long arm across his shoulders as he wrapped his around the blonde’s hips and helped him stumble home, bearing the majority of the weight.  Erwin’s breath would be lightly scented with alcohol and damp against his neck as he drunkenly whispered apologies to fallen comrades. 

 

Levi always made sure to carry him home.

 

Then, there was the hours between night and dawn, when the man had worked himself to exhaustion, buried among budget reports and scouting maps.  Levi would have to drag him from the stiff wooden chair, bones cracking and popping from staying too long stationary. He would half pull, half drag the barely conscious man to his sleeping quarters.  His soft hair tickling Levi’s cheek as he leaned heavily against him in an effort to stay upright, his skin smelling of parchment and ink.

 

Levi always made sure to carry him home.

 

In moments of passion, with limbs tangled, lips seeking, and breaths panting, Levi would lift him, pull him, anything to get him closer...anything to feel  _ more _ of him.  Even as Erwin tried to pull away, feeling guilty, unworthy, despite whispered reassurances and pleading moans, Levi would bring him closer still.  He would press into Erwin’s hard body as if to crawl inside his skin to live there. When it felt like they couldn’t breathe unless they were breathing in each other’s breaths, he wouldn’t stop until their bodies were straining against one another and Erwin’s skin smelled of sweat, desperation, and sex.  He, then, would beg for release with whispered pleas and beseeching blue eyes.

 

Levi always made sure to carry him home.

 

Those long days and nights beside Erwin’s bed in the infirmary, the blonde unconscious but screaming in pain between bouts of delirious muttering that was brought about by a combination of fever and morphine.   He was there when the blonde would reach for a limb that was no longer there, but the pain in the extremity no less real. He was there during the first lucid moments when those beautiful blue eyes glazed-over with shock at seeing what was left of his arm, becoming catatonic for nearly a whole day after waking.  There when the nightmares broke through the agony, and he begged for death as he cried tears in his sleep that he wouldn’t dare let fall while he was awake. And when he called Levi’s name over and over as the nightmares would visit him during waking hours when the medication and lack of sleep would exhaust him the point of delusion…

 

Levi always made sure to carry him home.

 

Then there was that day, the day Levi had not been able to carry him home.  The day he asked Erwin to give up his dreams and descend into Hell. The day that someone else carried him, bloodied and broken, and laid him at Levi’s feet.  The fight to save him, only to realize that to truly save Erwin, he had to let him go. Staying beside him as his chest shuddered with every struggling breath.  Watching as his face, contorted with pain, slackened and relaxed as his heart stopped beating. Beautiful, even in death. Restful, as he never been in life. Mourned, but only by so very few.  

 

Levi carried him then, in silence, as the young celebrated a life of a dear one regained.  As Levi grieved. As Levi broke. As Levi died internally, emotionally, spiritually. He carried him,  feeling the warm wetness of his blood, the shift of fractured bones, the cooling of his skin. Levi carried him, heartbroken that he had to leave him behind.  There wasn’t time, nor was it safe enough to take him home, to mourn him properly. He carried him to a place where he could rest, covered by the wings that made so many free, even as they caged the one who bore them.

 

Levi would not forget how it felt not to carry him home.

 

He stood in front of a faded green, wooden door.  His hand slid gently along the cracked paint and the cold wood.  In all honesty, he was surprised the house was still standing as soundly as it was that day.  He took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob. He had to do this. He couldn’t stand the thought of those spoiled dogs of the Military Police coming and collecting what remained of Erwin.  He was finally going to be buried, lauded as a hero by the very same people who had cursed him as a demon. The irony had not been lost on Levi.

 

Steeling his resolve, he turned the knob and entered the room.  It was quiet and peaceful, and the sunlight filtered through the windows.  The room seemed untouched, frozen in time and he kept his eyes trained to the floor, not ready, never ready, to see what laid on the bed in the corner.  He slowly approached, feet feeling as heavy as lead, chest tightening with every step. He wanted to turn and go. He wasn’t ready for this, he could never be ready for this.  

 

When his eyes finally lifted to what was left, he lost the ability to breathe.  What once a larger-than-life man, a man who stood taller than most, was now a pile of dusty bones.  The leather of his boots and harness straps were dried and cracked, and fell to pieces at his touch.  The gleaming jewel of the bolo tie was lying there on a tattered leather string, taunting him with the memory of how it looked resting around a strong, corded neck.  He gently picked it up and put in his pocket.

 

“Erwin?”  Levi took a moment to clear his throat as his voice broke saying the name out loud for the first time in such a long time.

 

“I’ve come to carry you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I did this justice. My thing is giving these two a happy ending because they will not get one in canon. Kudos and comments are appreciated.


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